


Water Lilies

by draculard



Category: I'm the King of the Castle - Susan Hill
Genre: Enemies to Still Enemies, M/M, Power Play, fight for dominance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:51:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: "Enemies are so stimulating."-Katherine Hepburn





	Water Lilies

Face-down in the water, it’s like looking through a clear glass to a world of minnows and muddy-colored frogs. For a moment, Hooper forgets that he can’t breathe. The water is cold and fresh against his skin, like a cool cloth applied by his mother’s hand during a fever. His eyes track the path of a tadpole zigging back and forth near the bottom of the river.

Then he sees the cloudy tendril of blood extending through the water like smoke on the air, and he thinks, _That’s me. That’s coming from me._

Then Kingshaw’s hand tightens around his neck and pulls him out of the water with one sharp tug. Hooper realizes then how his lungs are burning; he gasps for air, eyes tightly closed, his brain clogged up with fragmented, malicious thoughts.

He hears Kingshaw speaking, but his ears are plugged up with water. He shakes his head, feels Kingshaw’s hands on his shoulder and waist, and hears the last part of a sentence:

“ _—_ down.”

“What?” says Hooper. He blinks the water out of his eyes and glares at Kingshaw, who is very close and giving him a pained look.

“Calm down,” he says again. “You’re fine.”

“You tried to kill me,” Hooper says as all the pieces come together in his head. The blood in the water, the sharp sting of a wound on his forehead, Kingshaw’s hands holding him down in the water. He tries to pull away, but Kingshaw won’t let him.

“You must have tripped,” says Kingshaw. He’s nude, as Hooper is, though last he remembers, he was fully clothed. He sees his jeans and the sweater he borrowed from Kingshaw lying out to dry on a flat stone near the edge of the river. “I went to find a way out,” says Kingshaw. “And when I came back, you were lying half in the water with your skull bashed in by a rock. You must have been fishing and you slipped and fell.”

Hooper scoffs, but now it’s coming back to him. He won’t admit that Kingshaw is right. Instead, he tries to pull away, but Kingshaw’s grip on his arm is too tight. Hooper’s mouth twists and he tries to shake Kingshaw off, to no avail.

“Let me go,” he says.

“You’ll fall.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” says Hooper. In fact, he’s awful dizzy. How much of his blood is in the water now, instead of in his body where it belongs, keeping him alive? He can feel fear surging through his body like ice, and it must show on his face, because now Kingshaw is giving him that same exasperated, pitying look he had on during the thunderstorm.

And suddenly Hooper is in control again. He puts his hand over Kingshaw’s — the one on his waist — and gives Kingshaw a hard smile.

“Taking advantage, Kingshaw?” he says. Realization covers Kingshaw’s face in an ugly spasm and he tries to pull away, but Hooper steps with him. Kingshaw slips a little in the muck at the bottom of the river and Hooper stumbles with him; his hip knocks into Kingshaw, their cocks brushing against each other.

Kingshaw’s eyes go wide. His fingers tighten on Hooper’s waist, gripping him hard enough to bruise. Hooper’s smile is frozen on his face, stretching his lips into a nasty grin — but his eyes are hard, and he can’t seem to look away.

Deliberately, he steps closer, slotting his hips against Kingshaw’s. A water lily bumps against his leg, dropping beneath the water when Hooper steps on its stem. He puts his free hand on the small of Kingshaw’s back, holding him close.

He feels Kingshaw’s cock harden against his.

“Do you like this?” Hooper whispers. He’s close enough to see Kingshaw’s eyes go flat. “Is this why you’re so obsessed with me?”

Kingshaw tries, futilely, to pull away. “I’m not _obsessed_ with you,” he snarls, voice low. “ _You’re_ the one who — with the crow, and —”

Hooper can feel himself stiffening and he rocks against Kingshaw. The water makes them both feel weightless. He can smell Kingshaw’s skin, see the dirt and dried sweat on him from the earlier hike.

He’s never felt quite like this before — so angry, but unable to pull away. He can tell from the look in Kingshaw’s eyes that he’s never felt like this, either.

“Hooper…” Kingshaw says. It sounds like a warning. Hooper puts his arms around Kingshaw’s neck and his legs around Kingshaw’s waist; the water makes him so light that Kingshaw doesn’t bow under his weight, doesn’t even falter for a second. Their cocks are pressed against each other now beneath the surface of the river, their skin wet, and everything feels strange.

But not unpleasant.

“Kingshaw,” Hooper says, with a challenge in his voice. He expects Kingshaw to blush — to look away — to tremble, to succumb to panic, to react the way he always has when Hooper taunts him.

But Kingshaw meets his eyes steadily, without fear. He puts both hands on Hooper’s ass and pulls him even closer, so his flat, taut stomach presses against Hooper’s, so their chests are flush, so their cocks grind against each other with a friction that almost makes Hooper flinch.

The wound on Hooper’s head has stopped bleeding. Kingshaw has met Hooper’s challenge and beaten it, and he’s not sure what to do next, how to advance the game.

How to test Kingshaw’s boundaries once again. Kingshaw has never risen to meet him before; has always backed down; has always lost. Even when he’s tried to fight back, he’s failed, making this a new situation entirely, with Kingshaw and Hooper on even ground and neither willing to bend. It’s a greater conundrum than Hooper has ever solved before.

But, Hooper reflects as he presses his lips against Kingshaw’s, he has some ideas. 


End file.
